Of the eight coaches who led their teams to the quarter-finals of Euro 08, the youngest is still in his thirties, while the oldest will be 70 next month. There is less of a gap, but still a generation between the Dutch coaches who shook hands before last night's game between Holland and Russia, Marco van Basten and Guus Hiddink. It seems that international management is either a job for ambitious youngsters or grizzled old men.

It is a theory that intrigues Slaven Bilic. 'Why are grandfathers always better with kids than fathers?' says Croatia's coach, at 39 the youngest of those who took a team to Austria and Switzerland. 'Because they have more time. For me, it's better when you are 60 or 55. Then, you've already had your career, are financially sorted, and have enough energy and enormous knowledge to teach.'

Youth, or relative youth, has its benefits too, says Bilic: 'If you are 60, how can you understand a player who is 20, who comes to a training ground with a ghetto blaster? I wear the same clothes as my players, I understand them - I understand when they break with their girlfriends, I understand when they divorce. We are the same, more or less.'

The bond between coach and players was evident in the way Bilic consoled a tearful Darijo Srna, the one Croatia player to score in the penalty shootout on Friday, in the immediate aftermath of his team's heart-breaking defeat against Turkey.

Hiddink agrees that age can be an advantage. 'I'm enjoying my job right now - I get a lot of positive energy working with young people, teaching them a few things. It's a big motivation for me to keep going.'

The average age of the winning coaches in the past 10 Champions Leagues and the past 10 World Cups is the same - 50. If this is the optimum age for a manager, then of those left in Euro 2008 only Joachim Löw, 48, and Fatih Terim, 54, are within five years of it. One of them will be in the final, for their teams, Germany and Turkey, meet on Wednesday in the first semi-final.

Tonight in Vienna, 69-year-old Luis Aragonés takes charge of Spain against Italy, led by Roberto Donadoni, 44. Luis Felipe Scolari, the now former coach of Portugal, who went out in the last eight, becomes boss of Chelsea in July aged 59.

Gone, for the moment at least, are the days when leading a nation (usually the coach's own) was considered the zenith of a career, a privileged position that recognised an impressive track record and a manager enjoying the peak of his powers.

Now, as José Mourinho emphasised by turning down both his native Portugal and England during the past 12 months, it is all about club management, with the big European leagues far more lucrative and glamorous for the men who still possess youth, looks and hair.

'I would like to manage Portugal to finish my career, maybe when I am 60 years old or something like that,' says Mourinho. At 45 and having already won Portuguese and Premier League titles, the Uefa Cup and the Champions League, Mourinho decided earlier this month to take charge at Inter in Serie A.

Even Aragones, one of Bilic's 'granddads', is itching for a return to more regular contact with players and is considering taking over Fenerbahce in the hot-house of Turkish football. How many years will it be before another coach quits a European champion club to take over the national team, as Milan's Arrigo Sacchi did in 1990, the same year Graham Taylor, having led Aston Villa to second place, decided at the age of 44 that international management would advance his career?

Mark Hughes, who became Wales manager at 35 while still a player, reflected earlier this month when taking over Manchester City on how his ambitions have shifted nine years later. His only consideration now, he said, was club management.

Bilic, meanwhile, is crystal clear that the quickest and most prominent route to a big job in Serie A, La Liga, the Bundesliga or the Premier League is via international football. 'If you are 32, 33, 34, you are too ambitious, you are investing in yourself, you want to finish first. You want to win the big tournament because some chairman will see you and you are going to get promoted and the big chance.'

Inexperience should not count against a manager, he says. 'In Croatia I had a big argument with everyone about this. Say you finish your career at 35, then you go to school and learn to coach. At 38 you want to be a manager but no, you take over a youth team and spend at least 12 years doing so until you are 50. Only then do they say, "OK, now maybe you are ready to take a Premier League team". My philosophy is totally the other way round.'

This is how Bilic has plotted his career. He took over hometown club Hadjuk Split in his early thirties for a few games before being snapped up by the Croatia FA in 2004 to coach the under-21s. The senior job followed.

'The only problem is the authority - whether you're going to have that,' he says. 'You don't have to be old and grey to have authority, though it's easier, maybe. You don't have to shout a lot, make a war between you and the players - that is authority by force. For the right players and characters the only authority is knowledge and honesty. You can be young and have this.

'I don't mind sitting with my players to talk football with them, though I don't go out with them of course. I know I know more than they know, and that's the authority and they know it. I have a special relationship with my players.'

Peter Rees, who was on the Wales FA Council that interviewed Hughes for the job in 1999, agrees. 'You have to start somewhere and Mark cut his teeth with Wales. He was the youngest manager of Wales in living history, and was still playing at Southampton. But we knew him from being a schoolboy player and he is a born winner. Mark is very good with the players. He also took all his coaching badges and went on the management course at Warwick University. Sure, as a player he'd mug you, do anything. But off the pitch he's very polite and very shrewd.'

Also in common with Bilic - who took Robert Prosinecki, Aljosa Asanovic and Nikola Jurcevic with him from the Croatia under-21 team - Hughes has 'the same management team he had with Wales at Blackburn and Manchester City, Mark Bowen and Eddie Niedzwiecki. He'd be the first to say it is a team effort,' says Rees.

In a further echo of Bilic, here is Hughes's view on man-management. 'I don't have to shout and bawl. I've tried to create a certain standard and make everyone aware of where that standard is, the level of performance required. I'd like this to be self-regulated by the players. They drop below those standards and they know themselves.'

Five successful years allowed Hughes to begin his club career in the Premier League with Blackburn before taking over at City on a lucrative three-year contract. Would Wales be able to attract Hughes now? 'We could never afford to pay what he must be getting at City,' Rees says. Bilic will also take a huge hike in salary when he lands a club job - he is on £125,000 a year with Croatia.

The rewards are so high now in European club management that even Scolari, who won the 2002 World Cup as Brazil's coach, has had his lack of coaching experience on the continent questioned before taking over at Stamford Bridge. So, too, Van Basten, who has a ready answer to those who criticise Ajax for appointing him as manager, a position he takes up after the Euros.

'Ajax have had three great coaches in their history. Rinus Michels had only experience as a coach of the amateur club JOS. Johan Cruyff became coach with zero training licences and Louis van Gaal came to Ajax as assistant coach. So of course,' he adds with a hint of sarcasm, 'you can question whether my assistants and I who are in charge of Holland have enough experience to coach Ajax.'

The former triple European Player of the Year was influenced by playing under Sacchi at Milan, as was Donadoni.

Beyond Europe, it is a similar picture. Dunga, captain of 1994 world champions Brazil, declared in 2004: 'I do not want to manage.' And yet, seven years into retirement, he could not resist. His first appointment was the job that arguably carries the greatest pressure and expectation - leading the five-time World Cup winners.

Dunga's appointment is known in Brazil as 'doing a Klinsmann' because it mirrors Jurgen Klinsmann's move from former star player to beginning a managerial career by taking charge of his national team. They might just as easily have called it 'doing a Falcao', for Brazil had appointed the former Roma midfielder as national team manager in 1991, when he was 38.

Dunga is discovering the particular pressures of managing his country. Following a dour 0-0 draw with Argentina on Wednesday in a World Cup qualifier, the 44-year-old was booed off. His appointment has been criticised by former Brazil great Zico. 'I respect Dunga,' he says. 'But I think it's unfair on managers who have been working for years.'

Van Basten is looking forward to a club job - 'the day-to-day involvement' - whereas Joachim Löw took his Germany post to get away from it. Löw was only 44 - the same age as Hughes, Van Basten and Donadoni - when he became Klinsmann's assistant in 2004. But he had already managed six clubs and needed a break. 'It was important to get out of the grind of club football, where you don't have time to develop ideas, find new solutions.'

Donadoni, who left his last club job after criticism from his chairman, took over as national coach after the 2006 World Cup.

'When you're a club coach it's like being with your family and understanding them and developing them,' he said. 'But when you see people only once a month, or every two months, then the pressures are increased and it's not the same kind of relationship that you develop.

'It's important the players are mentally refreshed and not to put too much pressure on them. We don't have a lot of time to work physically so the mental preparation is very important. It's key to shift responsibilities from their shoulders to my shoulders. My wish is to see a team that enjoys playing.'

Perhaps it is miles on the clock, rather than years on a birth certificate, that can affect the choice between managing a club or country. Löw spent eight years in the domestic game before joining Germany, so Bilic - on contract with Croatia until 2010, but who fancies working at a big club - Hughes, Van Basten and company could well be back steering the hopes and dreams of a nation in and around their early fifties. Or they may wait until they are grandads.